


Blue Flame

by Island_of_Reil



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Burns, Farting, Gen, Immaturity, Trainee Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 02:02:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5988304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Island_of_Reil/pseuds/Island_of_Reil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fart-lighting contest in the boys’ barracks goes all wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue Flame

**Author's Note:**

> [My own kinkmeme prompt.](http://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/19979.html?thread=10045707#cmt10045707) Evidently nobody else was going to write this, so....

“Fuckin’ bean dinner again,” Daz grumbled as the boys filed back into their barrack. “Those cheap bastards.”

“Yeah, well, at least we got fed,” Eren said. Daz had the grace to look a little embarrassed.

“Hey, Daz. Y’know what the bright side of bean dinners is?” Jean asked with faux-innocence. The other boys looked at him expectantly. He smiled sweetly and let out a five-second, three-tone fart. 

His fellow trainees all groaned and held their noses and waved their hands in the air. The exception was Armin, who had already lain down on his bed and started reading his chemistry textbook. Armin wrinkled his nose but otherwise ignored what was going on.

“Speaking of bright. Have any of you guys ever lit your farts before?” Jean asked with a grin.

“Have I ever… lit my farts?” Connie repeated, squinting. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, man, you can totally light them. It makes a little blue flame.”

“Yeah, right,” Connie said. “He’s bullshitting us, Armin, isn’t he?”

“No, he’s not,” Armin said without raising his head from his book. “When you digest beans or certain other foods, your gut produces a flammable gas called methane. If you ignite methane, the flame is blue. That is, if you want to risk setting your butt on fire.”

“Aw, jeez, don’t be such a killjoy, Armin,” Jean said. “I came across a couple of guys doing that last month, and it looked like it was perfectly safe.” Armin ignored him again.

“You came across them? Did you wipe it off afterward?” Eren asked, and the other boys started jeering.

“Yeah, laugh it up, asshole. One of us is gonna die a virgin and it won’t be me. Anyway. Who’s got matches? I know some of you smoke when Shadis isn’t looking.”

“Hang on,” Reiner said. He pulled his safebox out from under his bunk, unlocked it, took out a box of matches, and handed it to Jean.

“Okay. So.” Jean hopped onto his bunk and sat with his legs spread wide and his hips tilted back. He took out a match and scraped it against the side of the box, and the flame materialized with a hiss. Holding it between his thighs, he scrunched up his face and squirmed a little. A sharp, short fart came out of him — and the flame flickered a bright, pure blue.

The barrack filled with laughter, cheers, and clapping. Jean blew out the match and grinned. “That’s how you do it. Who’s next?”

“Me!” Connie exclaimed. Jean tossed him the closed matchbox. Connie parked himself on the floor, heels wide apart, and held up an unlit match.

“What’re you waiting for?” Thomas shouted.

“For a good one,” Connie said. “Oh, wait — here it comes!” Moving fast, he struck the match, then held it a few centimeters away from his ass. He emitted a tiny little _peep_ of a fart, which produced a much less spectacular result than Jean’s had. The room filled with jeers again.

“Gotta eat more beans, dude!” Jean yelled. “Marco! Your turn!”

“Oh, I don’t know…” Marco said, turning brick-red. The other boys started yelling, alternately mocking and cajoling him, until he shrugged and, with a thoroughly embarrassed smile, assumed the position and lit the match. Marco’s fart was long and vaguely wet-sounding, and the flame went a much more intense blue than Jean had made it turn. The other trainees applauded him vigorously.

“Reiner!” Jean called out. “Big dude like you, it’s gotta be impressive!”

“Well, I dunno about _that,_ ” Reiner said with faux modesty, but he looked more than a little nervous as he crouched and held the match between his legs. His fart wasn’t especially loud, but the match head blazed like a torch. With a look of surprised alarm, Reiner shook the flame out.

“Whoa!” Daz said, his eyes like saucers. “What the hell did you _eat_ , man?”

“Same thing everyone else did,” Reiner said, shaking his head. “I… I have no idea why that happened.”

“Maybe the water in your village did something to you,” Mylius said.

“Well, in that case…” Bertolt said, smiling nervously and holding up his hands in protest. 

He drew another chorus of jeers, but they died down quickly when Eren said, “Okay, horseface. My turn.” Armin looked up from his book again with a concerned frown.

“This should be good,” Jean said. “Let’s see if you produce as much hot air out of _that_ end as you do the other.” There were a few snickers. Then the barrack grew silent and tense as Eren crouched on the floor next to his bunk. He struck the match, then held it in place. As Jean had, he concentrated hard, and then—

_*pbbbbbbbbphhhhhhht*_

“AUUUGHH!!! Fuck!!”

Armin wasn’t an especially fast mover, but his bunk was next to Eren’s, and he didn’t want to see his best friend burn to a crisp. He was there in a second with his blanket in hand. The flame, which had raced up the seat of Eren’s trousers, flared out from between his legs at Armin for the second before he managed to throw the blanket over Eren and force him to roll back and forth.

“Holy shit, is he okay?” Daz hollered. It had all happened extremely fast.

Eren, swaddled in the scorched blanket, was gasping and whimpering in pain. Armin shouted, “Someone get a medic!” Marco was out the door immediately.

“You okay, Armin?” Reiner asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Armin said. “My forehead kinda hurts, though.”

“Let’s see,” Reiner demanded. Armin turned around. The room fell silent.

“Um,” Jean said.

“What’s wrong?” Armin asked, frowning.

“You, uh, don’t have eyebrows anymore,” Reiner said.

Armin put his hands to his face. Under his unnaturally naked forehead, his eyes went wide.

“They’ll grow back,” Jean said. “Right?”

“Uh, yeah, eyebrows usually do that, Jean,” Reiner said. “I’m more… worried about Eren here.” Bertolt caught his eye, and they exchanged a very brief look before Reiner looked down at Eren again.

“What’s going on in here?” Shadis’s booming voice suddenly filled the room. A medic walked in past him to where Eren lay writhing, and Marco filed back into the room as well.

Jean seemed to lose about ten centimeters in height. “Um. Well, sir… we decided to have a fart-lighting contest.”

Shadis was silent as the medic slung a groaning Eren over his shoulder, ass up and with the blanket still around him, and carried him out of the barrack. Then he said, “So. You mean to tell me that I’ve been instructing a bunch of overgrown man-children who, at the ripe old age of fourteen, _still_ think it’s a terrific idea to play with matches indoors. Is that right, Cadet Kirschtein?”

“Uh… yes, sir.”

“And whose bright idea was this whole event?”

“Um… mine, sir.”

For a long moment, Shadis didn’t say anything. Then he said, “Well, then. Since you’re so fascinated with things that come out of asses, cadet, you’re gonna be on latrine duty for the next three months.”

“Yes, sir,” Jean said meekly.

“And, right now, _all_ of you are marching your flatulent behinds out to the track and giving me fifty laps apiece.”

“Sir,” Jean said awkwardly, clearing his throat. “Armin didn’t take part in this at all. Please don’t punish him.”

Shadis glared at him, then peered at Armin and did a double take. “Holy shit. He has no eyebrows.”

“No, sir,” Armin said miserably.

“So you didn’t take part in this contest, but your eyebrows got scorched off. How does that work, Cadet Arlert?”

“He put Eren out, sir,” Reiner said. Shadis stared at Armin some more.

“And Bertolt didn’t participate either, sir,” Armin said. Across the room, Bertolt, who was sweating copiously now, shot him a grateful look. So did Reiner.

After another long pause, Shadis said, “Cadets Arlert and Hoover, you’re excused from laps. Quick thinking on your part, Cadet Arlert.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“The rest of you: Out! Move! _Now!”_

The rest of the boys all filed out of the barracks, Shadis bringing up the rear. While the commander’s attention was elsewhere, Reiner managed to punch Jean discreetly but hard in the back. “Yeah, that was a real _bright_ idea,” he muttered.

***

Eren healed surprisingly fast from his burns. Reiner and Bertolt, who happened to be in the shower nearby him a week later, exchanged another brief look. Armin’s eyebrow recovery took somewhat longer. Nonetheless, by the time they had completely grown back in, Jean was still on latrine duty.


End file.
